The News
by Coseepo
Summary: John-boy misses Jenny and sends her a letter, but the reply brings some... unexpected news. AU.
1. The  Letter

**Heehee, I'm back already! Again, I have tried to write it in the style of the programme, so for the best reading experience imagine it as the same. By the way, this is an AU.**

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><p><em>When I was seventeen there was one visitor to our mountain who I remembered in particular, a girl of around my own age named Jenny Pendleton. Jenny and I fell in love, but after her father's death she was forced to leave the mountain. I missed her very much, but never more so than the following spring.<em>

The Walton family sat around the table eating breakfast.

"John-boy, could you please pass me the milk?" asked Elizabeth.

John-boy, who was sitting at the end of the table in his usual place, leaning on the table with his chin resting in his hand, did not react.

"…John-boy?"

Still he stared vacantly into space. The chatter at the table died down a little. Olivia leant forward.

"John-boy?"

His gaze focused, and he turned his head. "Yes, Mama?"

"Elizabeth asked you to pass her the milk."

"Oh, sorry Elizabeth." He handed it over.

"You've been a little bit spacey lately, son. Something on your mind?"

John-boy looked uncertainly back at his father. Everyone was looking at him now, waiting for an answer.

"Well, uh, truth be told Daddy, I been thinkin' about Jenny."

Olivia, whose face had been worried, broke into a smile. "Well," she said, picking up her bowl, "why don't you write her a letter? Ask how she is."

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><p>As John-boy sat in his room that afternoon, surrounded by piles of screwed up paper, the knock on the door that came was not exactly what he wanted to hear.<p>

The visitor entered without invitation. It was Jim-bob.

"Look Jim-bob, I'm real busy here, do you need something?"

Jim-bob came over to the desk.

"What're you doing?"

"I'm talking to you, aren't I. Go on, scat."

"Well, alright. When you finish, though, we're playing catch outside."

Jim-bob disappeared out the room again, leaving John-boy alone at his desk. He ran a hand through his hair and turned back to the fresh piece of paper.

'_Dear Jenny,_'

He stopped. He had tried every take he could. This letter had to be_ perfect_.

'_How are you? Everyone here is fine._"

He screwed it up in anger and tossed it to the side. _Why _was this so hard? He'd been writing all his life. He ran both hands through his hair now.

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><p>Jim-bob walked through the screen door and back into the garden.<p>

"Is he gonna come play with us?" asked Elizabeth.

"Nah, he said he was too busy."

"That's a shame," said Jason. "It's more fun when John-boy joins in."

"Aw, come on," said Mary-Ellen, grabbing the ball from Jason's hands. "Stop being a load of sissies. It's not like he's gonna be busy forever. Let's just carry on without him."

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><p>John-boy sat back in his chair and picked up the letter.<p>

'_Dear Jenny,_

'_I miss you more than I can say. I write just to tell you that, and that I love you, Jenny. I desperately want to see you, but as I know that that is not possible, I must be contented with writing you this note._

'_I hope to see you again, my sweet – I have discovered a new part of the woods that I wish to share with you before I share it with anyone else._

'_Your John-boy.'_

He sighed, and set his glasses down on the desk. It wasn't great, but it would have to do. Folding the note carefully and placing it in his pocket, he headed downstairs.

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><p>"Are you done with your work now, John-boy?" asked Erin as he appeared out the door.<p>

"I will. I just need to go down to Ike's first."

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><p>"Hiya John-boy. What d'you need?" said Ike, smiling as always.<p>

John-boy smiled back. "Hey Ike. Could I buy an envelope and a stamp, please."

"Alright then," Ike went over to the post window. "One envelope…" He placed it on the counter. "And one stamp."

"Thanks, Ike." He wrote Jenny's address on the envelope, stuffed the paper inside, and sealed it tightly. Then he added the stamp and handed it back to Ike. "Thanks again, Ike. Oh, and here's the money."

"Thanks, John-boy. Don't you worry, I'll see that it gets first delivery."

**R & R? Please?**


	2. The News

**You may have already worked this out by the end of this (what happens in this chappie, length of chappies etc.), but this is gonna be quite a short fic, as I am going away soon.**

**Please enjoy as much as you are able ;)**

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><p>"Mornin', boys!"<p>

"Hi Ike. Mama needs some new silk," explained Jason.

The children had dropped in on the way home from school. Erin and Elizabeth migrated automatically over to a display of dolls and dresses, while Mary-Ellen, Ben and Jim-bob looked at the models. John-boy went over to the post window and looked around, hopefully.

"Here's your silk, Jason. Your daddy want anything?"

"Not today, thanks, Ike. He won't be home until late. He's on business today.

"Alright then, just the silk. That'll be 50 cents."

Jason gave him the coins, then left the store to wait outside for his siblings.

"Hey, Ike? Is there anything for me in here?"

Ike laughed and went over. As he looked through the piles, he said: "Ah, I'll tell you John-boy, seems that your always waiting on something. If it's not the results of a writing competition, it's a letter from your girlfriend… and here it is."

He held it out to him.

John-boy snatched it angrily from him. "She's not my girlfriend," he muttered.

He opened the envelope, and pulled out the scrap of paper inside. He began to read it.

Meanwhile Ike went over to Mary-Ellen, Jim-bob and Ben.

"Oh, that sure is a nice aeroplane, Jim-bob. I bet it'd look real nice in your room."

"Yeah…" he said, wistfully. "But I have a lot now. Mama said I need to start slowing down."

"Oh, I'm sure it'll be fine. What do you think, John-boy?"

"Nah, John-boy's too mean," said Jim-bob.

He and Ike turned around.

John-boy had turned very pale, and was still stood holding the note.

"John-boy, is everything alright?" asked Ike.

Now his siblings began to look up too.

John-boy, apparently oblivious, dropped the scrap of paper and took something else out of the envelope. He stared at this, also, for a second. He looked up at his family, and at Ike. They all looked silently back, expectantly.

However, John-boy did not enlighten them. He swallowed hard, ran a hand through his hair and pushed past them outside. All of his siblings pushed each other in their efforts to follow him to the door.

As it was, the five of them, plus Jason, gathered on the little porch outside the shop, Elizabeth and Jim-bob pushing themselves to the front. They watched as their eldest brother walked over the dusty expanse before them, one hand knotted tightly in the back of his hair.

"What happened?" asked Jason of Mary-Ellen, standing closest to him.

"He got his letter back from Jenny and got all upset."

"Do you think she got another boyfriend?"

"I… I'm afraid it's actually worse than that, Jason," came quiet voice behind him.

Jason turned around. "Ike?"

Ike was holding the piece of paper that John-boy had dropped. He handed it to Jason, who scanned it, quickly. For the benefit of his siblings, he read it aloud:

"Dear John-boy,

"I recognised your handwriting straight away, and feel obliged, if saddened, to tell you that Jenny passed away of scarlet fever last month. I'm sorry to be the one telling you this.

"I have returned your letter, unopened. I'm so sorry, John-boy.

"Ms. Pendleton."

He slowly raised his head again, gravely.

"Jenny's… dead?"

No one answered Ben's question. They were too busy staring after John-boy as he disappeared through the trees.

**I know this is short, but I really wanted to end it here. Next chapter hopefully up tomorrow. Please R & R!**


	3. The Fear

**I really don't like the bit in the Pendletons' house, but otherwise I'm pretty happy with this chapter. Enjoy!**

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><p>The front door opened, and John entered, grinning broadly.<p>

"Evenin' all!"

He walked further into the room so that his family, gathered around the dining table, and, though it was suppertime, there were no dishes around.

John's smile lessened slightly at the silent, serious atmosphere. Slowly he took off his brown, battered had and began to lower it to the table.

"What's happened… Where's John-boy?"

For only now did he notice that his first-born was absent.

Olivia looked across the table to her parents-in-law worriedly, then back at her husband.

"He got a letter from Jenny Pendleton's step-mother. Jenny died of scarlet fever."

When there was a silence for several moments, she added: "John-boy hasn't been seen since."

John looked around at all of his family. "And no one has looked for him?"

"We thought that it would be best to leave him to it," said Jason.

John looked squarely back at his son.

"Just leave him to it, eh?"

Nervously, Jason nodded. John crammed his hat back on his head.

"Well I for one am going to go and find him."

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><p>John climbed out of the truck outside the Pendletons' old house.<p>

"John-boy?"

There was no answer. He went up to the house and tried the door. It was unlocked, and he stepped inside.

"Son?"

With a sigh, John was forced to conclude that he was not there. Turning to go, however, something on the doormat caught his eye. An envelope. He picked it up.

It bore Jenny's address, in John-boy's neat, painstaking handwriting.

He had been here.

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><p>John found his son sitting on the bricks surrounding the fireplace of the house he had begun to build in his youth. He stopped short, just on the crest of the hill.<p>

"You okay there, John-boy?"

John-boy turned around sharply. His eyes were red, but dry. He turned back again.

"Hey Daddy." His voice was weary.

John moved so that he was standing beside him. "You alright?"

John-boy stuck his bottom lip out and slowly shook his head. "I don't know."

John sighed and sat down beside his son. "Okay, son. I know what you're going through. Really, I do. And I get that you wanna have some time on your own to think right now. But we're worried about you. I'd like it if you were at least in the same building. Why don't you come home now?"

John-boy didn't look at his father, but at his own hands. He pressed his fingertips together and forced the palms of his hand apart. "I'm… afraid… to go home, Daddy."

"Afraid? What do you have to be afraid of in your own house?"  
>"Lots of things." He looked up from his hands and over the valley. "Everyone's reactions. Feeling sorry for me. Tryin' to talk to me about it."<p>

"Surely that isn't all, son."

John-boy shook his head. "No, no it's not." Now he did look at his father. "Out here. Me and Jenny spent a lot of time up here at this old house. And I like being here because of that. But the time me and her spent here, it was like a dream. At home, everything was more real. I can come here, and I can enjoy the memories, and it just seems like it's always been, that she's just had to go away. But at home where it's real… I'm afraid it'll hit me then." He laughed humourlessly. "And I just don't think I'll be able to stand that."

This was met by a silence, during which both the men looked down the mountain.

"Have you cried at all today, John-boy?"

"You know I actually haven't?" He looked up at the sky. "I feel like I should, but… I don't feel like crying… Does that mean I didn't love her, Daddy?"

"No, son. I don't think it does. I don't think it does at all."

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><p><strong>Review please!<strong>


	4. The Darkness

**Sorry this took longer than usual, but it was really hard to write the first couple of paragraphs. They kept coming out all awkward and stilted. Anywho, this combined with the deadlines I set myself means that this chapters a little shorter than usual, but I hope you enjoy it anyway :)**

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><p>John stopped the truck outside the house, and looked across at his son. John-boy was sitting completely still, staring dead ahead. His hands were on his lap, but they balled into stark white fists.<p>

"You ready?"

Barely perceptibly, John-boy tilted his head forwards, then back.

"Alright, then."

John opened the door and got out of the truck, but John-boy did not follow suit. John moved around the truck and opened the door for him. For a full ten seconds, father and son looked each other straight in the eyes. John-boy stepped out of the truck.

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><p>The second the front door opened, John-boy was hit, just as he had feared, with a wave of reality. Jenny was <em>dead.<em> He barely noticed as his father stepped in the house, barely noticed when he turned back to see what was wrong. He barely noticed that he staggered back a couple of paces before he fell, and barely noticed as he hit the floor.

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><p>"Time for breakfast, children!"<p>

Despite the cheeriness in her voice, Olivia's face betrayed her worry as she carefully watched her children go past her to the table. John came and stood beside her.

"John-boy, breakfast!" she called, when he did not appear.

There was silence upstairs.

Olivia made to go up and get him, but her husband gently caught her shoulder.

"Leave him be, Liv. He's had a hard night. You can bring him some breakfast after."

Olivia lingered on the stairwell uncertainly, but she did not protest as her husband led her to her place.

The children were all looking at them silently.

"Something wrong with your stomachs?" asked John, amiably. "Come on, get eatin'."

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><p>Olivia knocked on the white door. In her other hand she balanced a carefully assembled hearty breakfast on a tray.<p>

"John-boy?"

He did not answer her.

"I brought you some breakfast," she said, coming in.

John-boy was sitting in his chair, still in his pyjamas. He did not react when she came in.

"John-boy, if you don't get dressed soon you'll waste the whole day." She set the tray on his lap. Still he stared straight ahead, unblinking.

"John-boy…?" She touched his shoulder gently, and then shook it.

John-boy's eyes focused and he turned his head towards her, expressionless. She took a plate from the breakfast tray, some toast, and offered it to him. He stared at it blankly, then slowly raised his head so that he was staring straight ahead again. His eyes clouded once more.

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><p>"What are we going to do about our son, John?" asked Olivia, sadly. She and her husband were stood in the kitchen. John-boy was in his room, but everyone else had been sent outside.<p>

"Which son?" John's affability was not nearly as convincing as usual.

"John I'm serious." She sat down at the table. "He spends the day hiding out in the woods and then comes home and collapses. Now he's sitting upstairs all alone, staring into nothingness as if there's something there."

John rested his hands on her shoulders. "He's lost someone close to him. I know how bad that feels."

"You've never lost a girlfriend."

"No," he conceded, nodding. "But I've lost a brother."

Olivia looked up and smiled apologetically at her husband, but did not relent. "He hasn't even cried. I just know that if he did he'd feel better."

"I think he would too, Liv. But sometimes you just feel to empty inside to cry."

"Empty. You know, that's the perfect word to describe John-boy right now." She shook her head. "But what can we do about it?"

"You know…" John rubbed his chin. "I reckon I might just have a solution. It would be painful for him though, Liv. Emotionally I mean. But he'll feel better in the long run. What do you think?"

Olivia folded her arms. "I think you better tell me about this plan of yours first."

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><p><strong>If you review, I'll give you cyber-hugs!<strong>


	5. The Journey

**Shorted chapter so far I'm afraid :( I don't know if the next chapter will be any longer, but it will certainly be sooner. And I've already started work on my next Waltons fic! (Not putting it up until at least two of my current fics are finished though)**

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><p>John rapped sharply on John-boy's bedroom door. "John-boy? I'd like to come in."<p>

There was no reply, so he went straight in. "Get dressed, son, we're going for a drive."

John-boy turned his head towards his father, still expressionless.

"Don't you give me that look, son. Come on, now. If you're not dressed in five minutes, I'm carryin' you outta here in your pyjamas."

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><p>When John opened the door again five minutes later John-boy was still sitting in his chair, exactly the same as he had been for the past two days.<p>

"Alright then, son, if this is really how you want to do this..."

John crossed the room in three strides and lifted his son over his shoulder. John-boy did not struggle – he had not expected him to – but neither did he lie limp. His entire upper body was rigid, arms exactly parallel with his father's back. He did not move his head an inch.

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><p>In the truck, John kept glancing at John-boy, hoping that he would at the very least ask where they were going. After an hour of silence, John decided to try a different tact.<p>

"So how you holding up John-boy?"

Silence.

"That bad, eh?"

Silence.

John sighed and pulled the car over to the side of the road. "John-boy."

Silence.

John grabbed his son's shoulder with some force and twisted his entire body towards him. "_Listen to me. _Look, John-boy -" John stopped, and rubbed his chin with his free hand. "Look, son, don't you think you're being just a little selfish? I mean, I realise what you're going through is difficult, but you're acting like you're the first person who ever lost anyone special. You hadn't even known Jenny very long, and it's been months since you seen her. I'd appreciate it if you'd at least say _somethin_' to me."

John at last released his son's shoulder. John-boy turned and stared dead ahead once more.

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><p>The truck pulled to a stop again, this time at the bottom of a hill surrounded by a fence. John-boy's face suddenly changed, with fearful realisation.<p>

"Where are we Daddy?"

John had already got out the truck, and walked around to the other side, hands resting on his son's window. "You'll have to get out and see, son."

Swallowing hard, John-boy opened the door and stepped out of the truck. He followed mindlessly as John opened a gate and began to walk up the hill. He wanted to be wrong about where they were. He dearly wanted to be wrong. But somehow, he knew he was right.


	6. The Grave

**Hooray, now you know where they went! It's really not that exciting. I tried to rewrite this chapter but this was the best I could do… sorry ;)**

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><p>John reached the tree at the top of the hill and turned around. John-boy's hands were shoved deep into his pockets and his head was down, eyes shut.<p>

"John-boy. Please open your eyes."

John-boy took a deep shuddering breath and shook his head.

Sighing, John took his son's shoulders and forced him forward. "Open your eyes, son."

He did. His breath caught in his throat, and he dropped choking to his knees. "J-Jenny..."

'HERE LIES JENNY PENDLETON, 1916 – 1934.

'SORELY MISSED.'

He was kneeling on her grave.

John-boy began to cry, then. Properly, achingly cry.

"I'll be in the truck, John-boy," said his father, quietly, and walked away.

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><p>John-boy cried until he had no tears left to shed. For hours afterward, he just sat, broken, red-eyed, until, as darkness fell, his father appeared.<p>

He placed a hand on his son's shoulder. "Come on now, John-boy. Can't be stayin' here all night."

John-boy slowly rose, and turned into his father, hugging him tightly.

"I miss her, Daddy."

"I know, son," said John, hugging him back. "I know."

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><p>"Isn't it a little late to be heading home, Daddy?"<p>

They were back in the truck, and had been driving for about five minutes.

"Yup. That's why we're not going home," said John, cheerfully, happy to have his son back.

"We're not?"

"Nope. We're staying somewhere."

"Where?"

The truck drew to a stop outside a small terraced house.

"Here."

John-boy looked at the house. Through the window, he saw a familiar looking woman.

"_What?_ Daddy, no! We can't stay _here!_"

"It's alright son, I phoned up and asked yesterday."

John-boy looked again at the woman through the window. She was dressed entirely in black, but she went about her daily chores as usual.

"I've been bein' real selfish, haven't I Daddy."

"Yes, son. You have." When John-boy looked downcast, John placed a hand on his shoulder. "But that's okay. You're young. And in love. And it's the first time you've lost somebody close to you. Mrs Pendleton is a lot older than you, John-boy, and she's seen a lot more than you. And I'll wager she'll be thrilled to see you, too. Come on. Let's go."

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><p><strong>Erm…. Review? Also, I can sense that the next chapter will take a little while longer...<strong>


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